‘Timid’ Keir Starmer failing to show leadership in face of ‘tsunami’ of job losses, union leader warns

Close ally of Jeremy Corbyn warns Labour leader he cannot win power without support of the left

(BBC/AFP/Getty)

Labour’s “timid” leadership risk looking like middle managers in the face of what could potentially be a deeper slump than the Great Depression of the 1930s, Unite union boss Len McCluskey has warned.

McCluskey - a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn who backed left-winger Rebecca Long-Bailey as his successor - said that “fear” of being attacked was holding Keir Starmer back from setting out what Labour would do to prevent a “tsunami of redundancies”.

In a shot across the bows of the new Labour leader, the Unite general secretary warned Starmer that he cannot win a general election without the support of the left and said he would be “watching very closely” to see that he keeps to campaign pledges to hold onto radical policies developed under Corbyn.

Speaking to The House magazine, Mr McCluskey said that reports of the demise of Labour’s Corbynite wing were “greatly exaggerated” and urged leftists not to quit the party but stay to fight for socialist values. He called for a “gathering of the left” to soon to decide the policy positions around which they should rally their forces.

He said he was “worried” by indications of Labour’s Treasury team trying to distance themselves from the economic programme drawn up under Corbyn, which he insisted had “a significant amount of credibility and support”.

Mr McCluskey said that in his first 100 days Starmer had shown himself to be “competent and disciplined” in comparison with Boris Johnson.

But assessing the leadership’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, the Unite boss said: “It seems to me there’s an element of timidity among some of the leadership team to come out and say what is needed for fear that they then get attacked about ‘Well okay, where’s the money coming from?’ and ‘how are you going to do this or how are you going to do that?’.

“There is an element of, I think, fear rather than caution. I can understand people being cautious, but you can be cautious and confident.

“Labour needs the politics of ideals and ideas. Otherwise, you just look like middle management, a middle management team. That won’t inspire anybody.”

Mr McCluskey said that his support for Sir Keir was “very much based on the pledges that he made to get him into leadership”, including maintaining Labour’s radical values, increasing taxes on the highest earners, enhancing union rights and supporting common ownership of rail, mail, water and energy.

Although it was “not feasible” for Starmer to win an outright majority at the next election, it was “well within the sights of Labour” to form a government in a hung parliament, said Mr McCluskey.

But he warned: “It can only happen, and he can only become prime minister, if he has the support of the left.

“If he moves away from the left, if he doesn’t get the balance correct, then all that will happen is we will find ourselves into internal wrangling again on policy issues that have been decided.”

In a signal that he will resist efforts to shift away from John McDonnell’s economic platform of redistribution and renationalisation, Mr McCluskey said: “I’ve even heard certain inside members of the frontbench, whose names I won’t mention just yet, suggest that the last five years on economic policy has been a disaster. Now, I hope that doesn’t reflect Keir’s views, because it is simply untrue.”

Blaming Corbyn’s defeat in the 2019 election on Brexit, he added:

“There is no doubt in my mind that in the period from 2015-2017, John McDonnell and Jeremy set about presenting an alternative economic strategy that gained a significant amount of credibility and support…

“When I listen to shadow cabinet ministers trying to present in a subtle way a question mark over Labour’s economic credibility, that worries me.

“I don’t know whether it’s these individuals who take it upon themselves and if so, then Keir needs to keep a very close eye on that.”